


Thunderstruck

by Jverse



Category: No More Heroes (Video Games)
Genre: Existential Crisis, Existentialism, Gen, Metafiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 00:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20751251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jverse/pseuds/Jverse
Summary: In a decaying world, a hero awakens once again to be something different than the main character for once, wondering if that will finally fill the void in his existence.





	Thunderstruck

As electricity runs through my veins, I open my eyes once again.

There’s no introduction movie, no start menu, neither a level selector or other previous preparations. I appear to breathe again like just after resuming from a pause screen. I’m in my boots, inside the power suit. In the middle of the boss arena, prepared to confront the last menace in another fateful chance.

However, no final boss is waiting for me here. Nobody is. Not even a regular foe.

I realize that everything looks the same since the last time the system experienced a blackout. We didn’t get into a recycling reboot. This isn’t a new game, or even a special DLC. Not a promotional demo about a new installment in the famous series I’m the protagonist of, either. Just the same arena in the final area where the story’s climax is waiting for me. But turns out that, one more time, there’s no one here.

Only me and that permanent feeling of void and repetition.

What’s the purpose of fighting if you don’t have anything to fight for?

Thanks to the help of many kind players that decided to give me an opportunity, I became the hero of Electric Speed City for a second installment. I went out in the middle of the crisis, with the promise of saving my family, and fighting against the many problems that the developers prepared for me to make this arcade game equally challenging and fun. I played my role uncountable times, sometimes failing on my way towards the final challenge. Others, pushed by the fingers of skilled players, I reached the end.

I got too used to this over the course of many years. The goal wasn’t only to save the city, but resolving a personal frustration too: saving my dear wife and daughter, who were missing since the first iteration of Electric Thunder Tiger. I got reunited with them at the end of that first game, in a happy ending. However, as our game got famous and more people wanted to take in the adventure, the developers needed a new excuse to make a sequel. Since the start of the second game, I’m already far away of my family. They’re missing again and all I’ve got is a photo to remind me that I need to fight evil one more time to recover them. But, let’s be real, this game was programmed with the idea in mind that everyone would love it, as holding in the fame that my first adventure harvested. So… at the end of this new story, my family wasn’t awaiting for the rescue. Only a cliffhanger that promised an even more exciting adventure to finally retrieve them and fight the real enemy behind the shadows. Technology progresses, media evolves and, logically, our story calls to get deeper.

But was it worth it?

One day, the bugs appeared. They were trying to take over the world viciously, smashing every bit of well-crafted data they could find. They attacked me, my foes and allies, the structure of the world itself. Everything. It wasn’t like when the game is rebooted and I need to do the entire course again, with all those familiar faces revamping to recreate the story one more time like if it was a theater performance. No. When something was destroyed by them, it disappeared forever. Anything obliterated by these monsters would turn into one of their kind, like some sort of zombie plague. Spreading like it was, I found that I was the only one with enough power to destroy them, so I tried to advance through the world, cleaning every place I could find. But they kept coming, one after another, in a seemingly eternal cycle that resumed in my infinite electric heartbeat not fainting even once while fighting the countless hordes of bugs that kept invading the game... but not reaching any satisfying conclusion.

Obviously, I could take them all, but it wasn’t the same for the others. I couldn’t be everywhere every time. So each time the program blacked out and then started up again by chance, I lost someone.

Eventually, there wasn’t anyone but me left in the game world. The system declared that I conquered the city.

I lost my own meaning of existence.

Digital advisors redeemed me as having gone mad when I retired to the final arena and stopped fighting the bugs, but the truth was that I was just depressed.

Keep fighting against them proved to be a waste of time. Mary, Lilia… they were gone forever. My family was my existential compass and now, without any secret endings with a satisfying, surprise of a cliffhanger, the world of Electric Thunder Tiger II fell to its ruin faster than I could realize.

Now, I wonder if there’s a real purpose in the existence of a possible sequel. What’s going to happen if someone out in the real world finds the way to clean the bugged system and decides that a hypothetical third installment would be worthy of being developed? Will someone remember about us? Will they treat us with enough love and passion to gift our story with a happy ending? Back in the old days, everything was simpler. Our first game was shorter and harder. It didn’t have a wide variety of enemies or stages. Difficulty spikes were drastic and frustrating, sometimes. The world was in 2D. We all were like simple-colored forms over a canvas, as 3D design wasn’t even an option at that moment. We had low definition, just a bunch of pixels moving and fighting each other. Despite everything, I thought that simpler existence was fun and, in the end, a couple of images depicted me reuniting with my two dearest ones. Just a brief closure, the ending was over the screen for less than a minute, with a MIDI of a victorious fanfare playing while the game thanked you for playing. But for me, that almost-a-minute was pure happiness.

I could be with them for a moment. Now I'm enough advanced to have my own voice, but it can't reach them anymore. What would be the next? Long, elaborated cutscenes that make our world's lore richer, but don't tie the knots of our story properly? If that's the case, perhaps I would've celebrated it if the circumstances were different. Right now, as the clock of time seems entirely broken, I just want to become simpler.

I feel like it's time for me to disappear.

This world doesn't need one of my kind anymore. I'm just the governor of an empty world that, while going astray around its ruins, can't fathom a proper guidance. I can't be a hero if I can't destroy the enemy. I can't be a hero if they don't pose against me like a real menace. I can't be a hero... if there's no one waiting for me after my triumph. I feel like a I turned into a sketchy shadow of my former self. A fading star, on his way to vanish and be forgotten.

However, I'm not made of decaying meat. My body is formed by data, moved by the program code of this universe. There's no blood in my veins; what splatters out when I receive damage is the same electricity that pumps every one of my actions. In a way, I'm infinite, and in my current state, somewhat of a mirror shard that mimics the nature of the same bugs that ruined my existence. At any chance I end up closing my eyes abruptly, meeting the total black out, I feel like I'm prepared to finally rest forever. In the end, there's always another moment when I just open my eyes and I find myself in the same spot walking in circles again, and again.

So, as I'm infinite within the rules of my corrupted world, I need someone to terminate this nonsense. If as a ruler I can open my eyes again, it's because a new challenger wants to reach this lair and meet me for a fight. This place is coded to be a battle arena, we can't do anything other than exchange a couple of dialogue lines and show what we've got. So, my last hope is to wait for that fateful challenger, and give them enough of a reason to shut down everything. To end the bugging cycle.

From a glorified hero, to a last standing boss. That's what my existence has turned out to be.

If I think about it twice, it's not that bad.

Perhaps they're the chosen ones. Finally, someone who can make me feel something after losing myself this bad. Pain, anger, effort, a living intent. All in a flickering moment, like lightning crashing against the ground in the blink of an eye. I need to inspire them with that never-ending passion, with the unlimited vibration and power of the crackling electric impulses that travel through my veins. Giving everything I've got in the final battle, in order to make them feel like it's worth the win, to pass the baton of the protagonist role and let some needed new stars to rise up.

And in the demise of my data disintegrating after a well-earned defeat, I'll be able to finally feel at peace. Electro Triple Star will be kept in the memories of our digital chronicle, remembered as a last standing hero through the many generations.

With that, it'll feel like I may have a chance to be reborn in the future. Something completely new built from the ashes of the many bits we lost through the process, meeting up with everyone that got lost along the way. And if not, it doesn't matter. For now, I just need to wait patiently.

Within the dream that will follow my last spark, the hero will feel complete again.

**Author's Note:**

> This short story was created for a (sadly) cancelled Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes zine. Everyone did an awesome work through the project, and I wanted to focus in one of the charismatic bosses in the game. Electro Triple Star is the first you meet, and it became one of my favourites not only by design, as for his interesting take in the figure of an old arcade game hero, who loses everything and now wonders what's about his existence... His story left me wishing for a possible Electro Thunder Tiger III. Hope someday the star can rise again!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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